Lou B. ("Bink") Noll

Bink Noll (April 15, 1927 – November 9, 1986) was an American poet, one of a notable group of poets who graduated from Princeton University in the 1940s and early 1950s. At the time of his death, he was professor of English at Beloit College in Wisconsin.

Biography

Lou Barker Noll was born in Orange, New Jersey, on April 15, 1927. Family members called him Bink, and the nickname became his preferred name, even professionally. He graduated from Princeton University in 1948, after serving in the Merchant Marine from August 1945 to January 1947. He earned his MA degree from Johns Hopkins University in 1950 and his PhD in English Literature from the University of Colorado in 1956. His dissertation focused on the lyrical achievement of Abraham Cowley.

After teaching at Beloit College in 1953–54, he taught for six years on the English faculty at Dartmouth College. In 1960–61 he lectured on American language and literature at Zaragoza, Spain, on a Fulbright Fellowship. He returned to Beloit College in 1961 and was promoted to full professor in 1969. He received a National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) grant in 1974.

Noll published three volumes of poetry. His first book, The Center of the Circle was published by Harcourt, Brace & World in 1962. Already his poetry had appeared in leading periodicals, including The Atlantic Monthly, The Paris Review, The Kenyon Review, and The Nation.

A second volume of verse, The Feast, followed in 1967. In 1968, he signed the "Writers and Editors War Tax Protest" pledge, vowing to refuse tax payments in protest against the Vietnam War.^[1]

During the following decade his career was interrupted by illness. His third book, The House, appeared in 1984. It is a mature performance by an accomplished poet. In The House the formality of his earlier style is softened, but the verse is still informed by a subtle awareness of sound. The poems explore the triumphs and tragedies of domestic life.

Bink Noll's papers, including correspondence and journals, reside in the Beloit College Archives. He corresponded with several notable literary figures of the twentieth century, including poets William Meredith, Richard Eberhart, George Garrett, Willard Thorpe, Ned O'Gorman, and W. S. Merwin.

American composer Burrill Phillips set Noll's words to music in "Song in a Winter Night: for soprano and piano" (1985).

Noll died at Beloit, Wisconsin, on November 9, 1986, after years of heart trouble following cancer treatment.

Bibliography

Poetry

• The Center of the Circle (Harcourt, Brace & World 1962)
• The Feast (Harcourt, Brace & World 1967)
• The House: Poems (Louisiana State University Press 1984) ISBN 978-0-807-11197-0
• Selected Poems, David R. Slavitt, ed. (Little Island Press 2017) ISBN 978-0-993-50565-2
• Lunch on Omaha Beach

Poetry in anthologies

• Seven Princeton Poets: Louis Coxe, George Garrett, Theodore Holmes, Galway Kinnell, William Meredith, W. S. Merwin, and Bink Noll (The Princeton University Library Chronicle Special Issue, Volume XXV, Number 1, Autumn 1963)

Score

• Song in a winter night: for soprano and piano / words by Bink Noll; Burrill Phillips. (1985)

References

External links

• Obituary from the Beloit Daily News
• Brian Mornar's history of literary culture at Beloit College
• Reprint of Noll's "Quaker Hero, Burning," with commentary by the poet
• Noll's long poem "Hallucination"
• Marion K. Stocking's review of The House, which she describes as "magisterial"